On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 22:54:03 BST, Per Gregers Bilse said:
The problem is that from and including A we can't talk about the damned things any more -- we resort to spelling out each number, with no inherent and natural feel for what we're taling about.
An A380 has a maximum take-off weight of around 24E (two-four-E) tonnes. An A380 has a maximum take-off weight of around 590 (five hundred and ninety) tonnes.
I've seen somebody pronounce C48C as 'ceety four hundred and eighty cee' - and the person listening grokked it. aety, beety, ceety, deety, eety, effty. aety and eighty are a bit too similar, unfortunately. The thousands/millions probably comes easier to those of us who did a lot of octal work - the newcomers seem to like to clump hex numbers in clumps of 2 and 4.